The 2018 season is nearing the midway mark, a natural time for fantasy managers to reflect on the first three months while planning for the final three. This is also when the waiver wire gets a bit barren, particularly in deeper leagues.
Some potential free agents breezed by this article’s threshold of an ownership rate below 10 percent. Even though he’ll likely head back to the minors or bench in a few days, Keon Broxton needed one huge game (two homers and a steal on Friday) to jump back into fantasy notoriety. Injuries to Carlos Correa and George Springer have also led more managers to stash Astros prospect Kyle Tucker.
The following six players remain unclaimed in the fantasy lost-and-found. Although their upside is more limited, they each bring steadier playing time and/or at least one distinguishable skill to the table.
Jose Bautista (OF – NYM): 6 Percent Owned
The Mets are a tire fire inexplicably rostering a washed-up Jose far past his prime. I’m not referring to Jose Bautista. Finding position players via the 2011 All-Star roster has finally paid off, as their latest penny-pinching add is hitting .250/.418/.476 in 36 games with the not-so-Amazins.
Bautista looks like the old Joey Bats, minus the elite fence-clearing power. While he has only deposited five homers in 150 plate appearances, the 37-year-old has posted a .218 ISO, a tad below his .231 career norm, on the strength of 11 doubles. He has fully harnessed his other hallmark skill with a 19.3 walk percentage, and he boasts a 46.8 hard-hit rate despite batting .218.
As the Mets keep sinking, Bautista has conversely climbed up the batting order, a sensible move given his keen batting eye. While his playing time would be threatened by Yoenis Cespedes and/or Jay Bruce returning from the disabled list, wondering what the Mets will do once everyone gets healthy is a lot like dreaming of how to spend your future lottery winnings. Right now he’s getting everyday reps on a team that thinks playing Jose Reyes over Amed Rosario makes sense. They clearly care little about proper player development, so an effective Bautista will keep playing over the recently recalled Dominic Smith. Ride the hot hand in deep leagues and grab him in any OBP format.
Joe Panik (2B – SF): 8 Percent Owned
Joe Panik is an empty source of batting average hitting .254. After opening 2018 with three homers in five games, he didn’t tally dinger No. 4 until Saturday. It’s not the flashiest fantasy profile, which explains his 8-percent ownership rate. Deep-league managers can still do far worse.
The quintessential “better in real life than fantasy” player, Panik has a secure starting job when healthy. Not every waiver-wire target can say the same in a league of 15 or more teams. Although slow to rebound from a thumb injury that cost him all of May, he has accrued four doubles, a homer, and a steal over his last eight contests. He also has more walks (18) than strikeouts (13) with a 92.7 contact percentage and 3.1 swinging-strike rate, so anyone projecting his rest-of-season batting average should set the floor closer to .275.
Nobody will look at grabbing Panik as a title-winning turning point, but available average stabilizers are now tougher to find than sluggers. At least consider him for a brief fling this week, which the Giants begin at Colorado.
Mark Canha (OF – OAK): 3 Percent Owned
Mark Canha has spent weeks as my Matt Damon in Jimmy Kimmel’s “Sorry, we ran out of time” bit. Whenever I’m about to highlight him, someone more interesting pops up. Following weeks of procrastination, I’d figured he’d either go cold or parlay his success to a double-digit ownership percentage.
Neither has happened. The Oakland outfielder batted .299/.392/.522 in June, but his ownership rate remains languished at 3 percent. He punctuated the torrid month with a 47.2 hard-hit percentage and just 15 strikeouts in 79 plate appearances.
The main reason for my hesitation to recommend Canha: He has manhandled lefties (.422 wOBA) but faltered against righties (.289 wOBA). He has thus lost playing time to Matt Joyce, an ideal platoon partner with a career .347 wOBA versus righties. Yet the 33-year-old lefty is struggling against all challengers (.206/.315/.365) this season, which has spared Canha from the light end of a strict timeshare. No matter how he gets there, deep-league managers can’t keep ignoring someone with a 118 wRC+ and 10 homers.
Lonnie Chisenhall (OF – CLE): 1 Percent Owned
When discussing Greg Allen three weeks ago, I said Lonnie Chisenhall may receive some recognition down the road. That time is now.
Since returning from a calf injury that sidelined him for nearly two months, the Cleveland outfielder has gone 23-for-67 in 22 games. While those hits yielded only one home run, he has still generated a .493 slugging percentage with only eight strikeouts in 74 plate appearances.
Chisenhall has quickly reminded fantasy gamers why he garnered attention as a deep-league sleeper. The 29-year-old has not only sustained but enhanced last year’s elevation gains with a 46.5 fly-ball percentage. He has also traded ground balls and infield flies for line drives, putting him on track to shatter last year’s personal-best hard-hit rate.
| Year | GB % | FB % | IFB % | Hard-Hit % |
| 2016 | 34.9 | 41.2 | 11.5 | 26.4 |
| 2017 | 38.6 | 45.7 | 10.7 | 33.7 |
| 2018 | 29.6 | 46.5 | 3.0 | 42.5 |
| Career | 37.9 | 40.7 | 11.2 | 26.5 |
Although never much of a power source, Chisenhall cracked 12 homers in 270 plate appearances last year. Now that he has validated 2017’s altered approach, don’t be surprised if he clusters 8-10 long balls with a steady batting average over the final three months. Staying healthy will prove the largest obstacle to him impacting deeper mixed leagues.
Adalberto Mondesi (2B – KC): 1 Percent Owned
Remember all the preseason jabber about the scarcity of stolen bases? Only 31 players have stolen 10 or more bases this season. Fifteen of them have submitted five or fewer homers. A deep-league manager can’t be picky about waiver-wire speed, so Adalberto Mondesi merits a careful look despite his offensive limitations.
Yes, he’s now hitting .200-boosting his career batting average to .184-with one walk in 11 games. He has 79 strikeouts over 245 career plate appearances. He’s also fast. As of Sunday, flashing a 29.8 Statcast speed score matching Ronald Acuna Jr. for seventh on MLB’s leaderboard. The 22-year-old has transferred that burst into three steals in four opportunities. Not bad considering he has reached base just eight times.
Fantasy managers often tend to overrate a prospect’s first (and second) impression. While so far a terrible major league hitter with no pop, Mondesi recorded a .241 ISO before getting promoted from Triple-A. He hit .305 with 13 homers in the minors last year, so perhaps this is simply a case of a youngster getting exposed too soon. Again, he’s only 22. This may be a desperate reach to prove a point, but the middle infielder has notched an 87.3-mph average exit velocity up considerably from last year’s 80.7. If he gets to play-Mondesi has started six of Kansas City’s last seven games at second base, shortstop, and center field-and improves from abysmal to subpar offensively, he’ll help speed-starved players in deeper mixed leagues.
Jorge Polanco (SS – MIN): 4 Percent Owned
Bonus choice! I nearly forgot about Jorge Polanco, who is set to make his season debut on Monday. I’m not the only one; he’s owned in just 4 percent of Yahoo leagues as of Sunday evening.
The shortstop was drawing considerable preseason buzz before getting slapped with an 80-game suspension for failing a drug test. In spite of recording a minus-31 wRC+ in July, he authored a .293/.359/.511 second-half slash line with 10 home runs (all after July 31) and 10 steals. The 24-year-old dashed any plans of a prolonged minor-league stay by going 8-for-19 with four walks, a triple, and a homer in six tune-up games.
A red-hot Ehire Adrianza doesn’t deserve to sit, but the Twins could move him to the outfield or have Eduardo Escobar DH over the toiling Logan Morrison. For now, Polanco at least must be grabbed in 15-team mixed leagues. He held allure as an intriguing middle infielder in 12-team drafts before the suspension, so don’t sequester him to deep leagues. It may only take one strong showing (or simply seeing his name on the lineup card) for his ownership rate to skyrocket.
Andrew Gould is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Andrew, check out his archive and follow him @andrewgould4.